


Cold and Alone

by ab2fsycho



Series: Hold My Tea and Watch This [14]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Dark!Jack, I think I'm done breaking Jack, I'm not awake, M/M, Pitch I'm coming for you, Pitch is depressed, it should be illegal to tag while not awake, it's making me depressed, mostly set-up, that'll happen later, we also be learning things bout other characters, we be learning things bout Pitch, where's my tea, why is tea always gone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-15 15:06:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/850926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ab2fsycho/pseuds/ab2fsycho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack is developing a new personality with the shadow inside of him. Pitch promised to help make sure Jack stays Jack and doesn't turn into someone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold and Alone

**Author's Note:**

> The horrible thing I did is going to end up giving me feelings. Should my own fics give me feels?

For the first time in most likely yet another wasted month, Jack was able to slip a hoodie back over his head and cover himself up. The sleeves were longer and the hood was bigger. The color was the same, and he watched as the fabric clung to his frozen body. Patterns already started to form on the cloth. Though it wasn’t quite as snug as the last shirt he’d owned, he liked it. It covered him. It protected him. He was no longer exposed. Then again, he actually had something he had to hide now. Jack rubbed his forearm where gray skin had replaced pale, the section where the shadow had taken up residence within him.

Picking up his staff, he let loose the faintest smile at how frost appeared in the crevices and creases. He almost felt whole again.

Almost.

Pitch hovered. His hovering had grown worse, if that was possible. The shadow within Jack had made him paranoid, and Tooth’s knowledge of the shadow really didn’t help the situation. Jack had distanced himself from everyone since that day. He was a threat now. Most of his friends didn’t realize that, but he knew. Pitch knew.

Tooth knew. He was a mess. She was right.

If Pitch would just stop looking so sad about it, Jack was sure he’d be fine. This was Jack’s fault. Reasonably, it was no one’s fault. But Jack wasn’t feeling very reasonable of late.

“I need to go,” he told Tooth, gripping his staff like it was going to be taken from him. In a way, he was glad Pitch had disallowed him from breaking it again to release the shadow. He didn’t need that pain on top of everything else.

“Take care of yourself.” She didn’t even realize how much her earlier words had hurt him. Jack didn’t want her to know. She’d only acted out of fear, out of concern for his safety. Again, it wasn’t like she’d been wrong about Jack and Pitch being troublesome. They were.

Pitch touched his shoulder as Jack moved to the window. He glanced back at the Nightmare King, then looked about the room. The ice still hadn’t completely melted. He closed his eyes, turning back to the window. “Let me be alone for a bit?”

He phrased it like a question, though it was more of a plea. Pitch hesitated, then nodded curtly. Jack wanted to thank him, but he knew that if he thought for one second his Boogeyman was really going to leave him alone, he was deluding himself. Pitch had a new job as well: to keep Jack sane.

At least Jack could pretend he was on his own for a short amount of time. He’d been cooped up for entirely too long.



They watched Jack get carried off by the wind. For a moment, it was like he’d never been harmed.

“What’s that shadow going to do to him?” The bird finally spoke after a moment of silence. They still stared out the window, though the boy had disappeared.

“I’m not entirely sure. It’s been centuries since something like this has happened,” Pitch answered honestly. “It depends on him.”

“It won’t hurt him, will it? Is it going to corrupt him slowly, take over—?”

“I won’t let that happen.” He turned to face her then, his facial expression changing into that of someone determined to live up to his promise. “I’ll find a way to fix this.”

She squinted back at him. “Here you are in the perfect position to hurt the Guardians in the most insidious way possible, and all you care about is making sure Jack doesn’t become like you.” He narrowed his gaze, biting back a snarl at her words. She knew she’d struck a chord in him. “It really does frighten you that he might become someone else, doesn’t it?”

“You have no idea what it’s like not being able to differentiate between yourself and the darkness that swallowed you,” he snapped before he could stop himself. “You really are a twit if you think I’d wish that on him.”

“He’s changed you, Pitch. Whether you realize it or not, he’s changed you.”

“I haven’t changed at all.”

“Yes. You have.” She stopped, as if realizing something she hadn’t recalled until now. Pitch braced himself for what he thought was coming. “No. You’re right. You haven’t changed. You’re just reverting back to your old ways. Only this time—.”

“Stop.” He growled. He felt his shadows writhing around him as his rage built. The twit didn’t even look scared. That only angered him more. “Do NOT bring that up.”

“Jack doesn’t even realize half of what you’ve been through. Funny how your enemies know you better than those closest to you.” She folded her arms, glaring back at him.

“I’m not having this conversation with you of all people.” He stepped into his shadows, preparing to leave and find Jack.

“You and I have experienced the same loss, but from different perspectives. I’m the only person you know you can have this conversation with.”

“That is irrelevant. I will not discuss this with you.” Before she could say anything else, he disappeared into the shadows.



Then who will you talk to? Tooth didn’t ask the question aloud. Instead, she landed and pressed her fingers to her temples. She breathed a sigh. She wasn’t sure if it was relief she felt. She wasn’t sure if she felt anything at all. That was a lie. She felt confused.

A knock on the door caught her attention. She returned to the air, turning to stare at who had interrupted her thoughts. “Hey, North.” 

“You don’t look so good. Everything okay?”

“Yeah, just . . . seeing the guys off.” She paused as North crossed his arms, like he knew something she didn’t. “What?”

“You are worrying.”

She sighed. North always read her too well. “Yes, but I don’t know who I’m more worried about.”

“That is surprising. You, possibly worried for Pitch.”

“Not as surprising as you’d think.” She looked back out the window. “He cares so much for Jack. There’s no way this can end well for him.”

“What makes you so sure? I think they are good for each other.”

If only he knew what had happened. He wouldn’t be saying that if he knew. “They are. But I can’t shake the feeling that one of them is going to end up hurting the other beyond repair. I just don’t know who.”

“If it is gut feeling, then you are probably right. You should be worried.” He came to stand beside her, taking her hand reassuringly. “We can only hope at this point.”

“You’re right.” She smiled up at him. “As usual.”



Jack sat in the snow of the Arctic, his legs tucked up against his chest with his arms wrapped over his knees. His staff rested at his feet, his hood pulled up over his head. The cold was comforting. Being in a warm room for weeks with an equally warm body constantly pressing into him had been nice, but not as nice as the snow and the wind.

He felt lost. That last thing he needed was another existential crisis on his hands, but this one had kind of fallen into his lap. Or, to be more accurate, it had grafted itself onto his very skin. He was scared of this new development. Scared and without the support of his friends the Guardians. If he thought getting their support on being with Pitch was rough, they all would be in for a nasty surprise once they discovered this little tidbit of information. There was no doubt in his mind they would find out. It was just a question of when.

He was alone. Even with Pitch, he was alone now. Pitch had promised to help, but . . . things weren’t going to be the same.

“I’m a liability.” He knew it was true. Always the screw-up. Always the one getting injured. Always the one who needed protection or guidance. Jack’s eyes felt heated suddenly as he got up in a flurry of rage. He grabbed up his staff, ready to break it over his knee. He could do this. He could do this one thing. He could fix this one thing for himself without anyone else’s help. His forearm tingled, like the shadow was fighting against him from the inside. He was ready. He was about to bring the staff down on his knee. He was going to do it, but he . . . he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. “Goddammit!” He threw the crook into the snow, crouching and balling his fists against his scalp. Half of his face felt hot, and he could feel his eyes burning. He was changing. He was changing and he was left alone, all over again. He screamed at the ground as his skin turned ashen and the humming in his head started. Suddenly, Jack Frost had taken a backseat in his own body.

“Jack?” The voice came from behind him. That voice. The voice that he usually loved to hear. He turned to look at the source. He wanted to go to it, but he remained seated. He remained on the ground, kept his distance. He waited. He waited to hear the voice again. Waited to hear if it would reject him. If he would be forced to stay alone. “Are you alright?”

He looked down. Couldn’t keep looking up. Light hurt. Sunlight hurt. He felt exposed all over again. The space was too vast. Too open. He stared at his hands. He gripped his forearm, heat seeping through his shirt from the gray patches of skin. His feet twitched. Watched the shadowy ice spread out under his bare toes, forming an uneven circle around him. The humming wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t so bad now.

He looked back up. Pitch was there. He was standing over him. He blocked out the light. He liked that. Being in his shadow was easier than living in the light of the other. Their light was bright. It hurt him. He kept getting hurt. Pitch made the hurt he’d felt bearable. Made him safe. He wanted safe. Right now, he wanted safe. 

But Pitch had to want him. Did he? No one else seemed to. Not really. Hardly anyone knew him. He was not this boy named Jack. That’s why they didn’t want him. He wasn’t Jack. He wasn’t, but he was. He was, but wasn’t. Who was he? Would Pitch reject him?

“Please don’t leave me,” he begged. His voice was small compared to that voice. He was small compared to Pitch. He didn’t mind. He didn’t mind at all. He just didn’t want to be alone. Did their Jack have the same fear? Jack had asked to be alone. Did he actually want to be alone though? He didn’t think he did.



Pitch knelt beside the boy, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. The boy closed his eyes and nestled against Pitch’s side. The Nightmare King reached for the staff that rested nearby, watching his shadows replace the dark frost in the grooves. He could feel the boy’s fear of rebuff. That fear alone was enough for Pitch to feel angry with himself all over again. More than ever, he was determined to right this. Then he would find a way to terrify the twit somehow. He had a feeling her words had affected Jack more than the Guardian would be willing to admit.

Though this new being wasn’t completely Jack, he wasn’t an entirely different entity. In many ways this was still Jack he was trying to protect, in just as many ways he wasn’t. No matter what, however, Pitch couldn’t ignore that face he’d come to . . . .

He refused to think it. Thinking it meant accepting it was true. And he wasn’t ready to accept anything save for his determination to guard what was his. He told Jack he was going to help him, and Pitch was a man of his word when it suited him. At this time, it more than suited him. Jack was his, and no one was going to take him away. Not even the shadow that now governed his body was going to.

“You won’t be alone,” he whispered to the boy. He clung tighter to Pitch.

“Take me home?” he asked. 

Pitch nodded, cradling the boy to his chest. Dark frost began seeping into his skin through his robes as the boy allowed Pitch to pick him up bridal style. Though he allowed it, the boy was still shaking in his arms like he expected to be injured. “No one’s going to hurt you.” This soothed the boy as he prepared his shadows for teleportation. “Not anymore.”

**Author's Note:**

> The last one, though an accident, has created a devastating path for this relationship. I'm starting to think this is going to be fun. Oh dear, this is all going to go according to plan after.
> 
> We are still in recovery, technically, but this is all a part of Phase Two of the "plan." Buckle up.
> 
> Thank you all again for sticking with this. I'm gonna thank you every time. Why? 'Cuz I do what I want.
> 
> I should probably drink that chamomile tea and sleep now. Sleep is good.


End file.
